Blue North > Blue's Quotes

“The waters of the stream played the part of the orchestra, and the sunlight provided the dancers. Every now and then a crescendo of wind highlighted the symphony in the clearing by the creek.”
― Edward Mooney Jr.

“I have come to know a God who has a soft spot for rebels, who recruits people like the adulterer David, the whiner Jeremiah, the traitor Peter, and the human-rights abuser Saul of Tarsus. I have come to know a God whose Son made prodigals the heroes of his stories and the trophies of his ministry.”
― Philip Yancey

“Sure, everything is ending," Jules said, "but not yet.”
― Jennifer Egan, A Visit from the Goon Squad

“I hold that a strongly marked personality can influence descendants for generations.”
― Beatrix Potter

“... a mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone, if it is to keep its edge.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

“Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.”
― Frederick Douglass

“She hadn't lied. She hadn't betrayed anyone's trust; still, she felt she had done something wrong. Or rather, she had not yet done the right thing. Was there a difference between these two sins?”
― Michael David Lukas, The Oracle of Stamboul

“You are a very special child," the old handmaid said, stroking Eleonora's hair. "You know that don't you?"

Eleonora mumbled a yes.

"You know you are special, but I think that you aren't sure how."

She nodded. That was, indeed, the crux of it.”
― Michael David Lukas, The Oracle of Stamboul

“With every choice, even the choice of inactivity, we must shut the door to a host of alternate futures. Each step we take along the path of fate represents a narrowing of potential, the death of a parallel world. The path of fate was more like a tunnel, and it was constricting about her with ever step she took.”
― Michael David Lukas, The Oracle of Stamboul

“How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach”
― Elizabeth Barrett Browning

“Those who don't believe in magic will never find it.”
― Roald Dahl

“When will you learn that there isn't a word for everything?”
― Nicole Krauss, The History of Love

“Maybe the first time you saw her you were ten. She was standing in the sun scratching her legs. Or tracing letters in the dirt with a stick. Her hair was being pulled. Or she was pulling someone's hair. And a part of you was drawn to her, and a part of you resisted--wanting to ride off on your bicycle, kick a stone, remain uncomplicated. In the same breath you felt the strength of a man, and a self-pity that made you feel small and hurt. Part of you thought: Please don't look at me. If you don't, I can still turn away. And part of you thought: Look at me.”
― Nicole Krauss, The History of Love

“Happiness consists in getting enough sleep. Just that, nothing more.”
― Robert A. Heinlein, Starship Troopers

“I think it's good for a person to spend time alone. It gives them an opportunity to discover who they are and to figure out why they are always alone.”
― Amy Sedaris, I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influence

“O, to be sure, we laugh less and play less and wear uncomfortable disguises like adults, but beneath the costume is the child we always are, whose needs are simple, whose daily life is still best described by fairy tales.”
― Leo Rosten

“For he would be thinking of love
Till the stars had run away
And the shadows eaten the moon.”
― W.B. Yeats, Selected Poems and Four Plays

“Your father, Jo. He never loses patience, never doubts or complains, but always hopes, and works and waits so cheerfully that one is ashamed to do otherwise before him.”
― Louisa May Alcott, Little Women

“The time to make up your mind about people, is never.”
― Philip Barry, The Philadelphia Story: A Comedy in Three Acts

“Few things leave a deeper mark on the reader, than the first book that finds its way to his heart.”
― Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Shadow of the Wind

“I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve (or save) the world and a desire to enjoy (or savor) the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.”
― E. B. White

“Good humor may be said to be one of the very best articles of dress one can wear in society.”
― William Makepeace Thackeray, Sketches and Travels, Etc.

“A line is a fuse
that's lit.
The line smolders,
the rhyme explodes—
and by a stanza
a city
is blown to bits.”
― Vladimir Mayakovsky

“You never know what worse luck your bad luck has saved you from.”
― Cormac McCarthy, No Country for Old Men

“There's no one thing that's true. It's all true.”
― Ernest Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls

“Forever, reading has been central, the necessary fix, the support system. Her life has been informed by reading. She has read not just for distraction, sustenance, to pass the time, but she has read in a state of primal innocence, reading for enlightenment, for instruction, even. ... She is as much a product of what she has read as of the way in which she has lived; she is like millions of others built by books, for whom books are an essential foodstuff, who could starve without.”
― Penelope Lively, How It All Began

“I have no idea where I am going, she thought, but I have begun.”
― Penelope Lively, Consequences

“It seems to me that anyone whose library consists of a Kindle lying on a table is some sort of bloodless nerd.”
― Penelope Lively

“Ben wished the world was organized by the Dewey decimal system. That way you'd be able to find whatever you were looking for.”
― Brian Selznick, Wonderstruck

“If a man has to say trust me, Gogu conveyed, it's a sure sign you cannot. Trust him, that is. Trust is a thing you know without words.”
― Juliet Marillier, Wildwood Dancing